A wide variety of motorized and manually driven tools for driving fasteners are known in the art. Box wrenches, hex wrenches, screwdrivers, etc., and various motorized devices are employed across a broad spectrum of technical areas where fasteners are used. So called “socket” wrenches and various motorized socket-driving tools are widely used to provide a relatively rapid and convenient means of driving fasteners, fastener nuts and similar articles.
A conventional socket consists of a cylindrical body with an orifice configured to receive the article to be driven or a portion thereof. Such sockets also typically include an aperture or protrusion opposite the orifice used to couple the socket with a driving member for applying a torque to rotate the socket when a fastener or fastener nut is positioned therein. The specialized head shape of certain types of fasteners, however, such as eyebolts, hooks, T-bolts and the like, have required a differently configured socket to accommodate the different shapes of the fasteners.
One type of socket adapted for driving eyebolts and similar fasteners employs a slot configured to receive the head of an eyebolt or the like such that rotation of the socket forces rotation of the fastener which is used to drive the fastener into or out of a substrate. While such socket designs offer a measure of improvement over attempting to manually drive the fasteners into a work piece, when higher torque is applied to the sockets, the head of the fastener tends to slip out of the desired engagement with the driving socket. In particular, it is common during driving of eyebolts and the like for a driven fastener to slip to one side within the socket, thereby twisting or sliding into a position that is not aligned with the socket axis. When so positioned, rotation of the fastener is hindered and the fastener may become damaged, frustrating the user and slowing the operation.
What is needed therefore is a socket which can be used to drive different types of fasteners. A further need exists for a fastener that reduces the potential for slippage of a fastener within the socket as the fastener is being driven.